Articulated objects such as the human body, human hand, a laptop computer, a robot, an animal, or other articulated object, are challenging to track with high levels of accuracy and speed from captured sensor data such as video images, depth camera images and other sensor data. Tracking such articulated objects involves calculating the global position and orientation of the object as well as tracking positions and orientations of one or more joints of the articulated entity. For example, a joint where a laptop display connects to a keyboard, a finger joint of a human hand and others.